SK01 - Waist Deep (6 page)

10

The cold in the park felt good, but the stiffening in my joints from sitting outside finally forced me to head home.

Inside my tiny apartment, I sat at the kitchen table and meticulously wrote out everything that Matt had told me about Kris Sinderling.
I wrote questions in the margins to the left of my list of facts.

Why’d she pull away from her friends?

Why’d she run away?

Is there a boyfriend?

I studied the list and my questions, then pushed away the pad of paper.
I went to the bathroom and took some
aspirin
, then spent the rest of the day staring at that pad of paper.
I stared and I wished for a crisp new manila folder to neatly store the notes.
I stared at the paper and at Kris’s glamour photo that Matt had let me keep and then back at my handwriting.
I stared so long that ghosts abandoned their hiding places from behind the curves and strokes of my pen and emerged, fingers pointing, pointing, pointing.

That night I slept.

A little.

And dreamt.

11

Her eyes were open.

Cold.

But she was
grinn
ing, her small cheeks rounded as her lips turned up in a smile that might welcome a new lunch box or her favorite teacher.
It might have been the smile she flashed in answer to the question,
Do you want me to push you on the swing, Amy?
It was a child’s smile, full of innoce
nce and hope and it sat upon
her face like the sun.

Until she saw me.

Then the smile faded.
Her mouth slackened and finally hung open lifelessly.
Then I was able to see her matted hair, splotched with black dirt and rust.

But it wasn’t rust.

I
t is. It
i
s
rust
!
I screamed.

B
ut I knew it wasn’t.

It was blood and I knew it and then the light faded from her eyes, fixing me with an accusing, silent cry.

You’re too late
, th
ose eyes
said.

I’m sorry.
I—

But it doesn’t matter what I say.

Her eyes were right.

12

I put some of Matt’s expense money to use early the next morning.
After a small breakfast of toast and coffee in my apartment, I slipped on my cowboy boots and my leather jacket and called for a
taxi
.

The driver was a clean-cut white kid in a pressed white shirt and a thin tie.
He’d asked me my destination.
When I told him Fillmore High School,
he’d started the meter, asked me
if I wanted to hear some
music and drove on without a word.
The interior of the cab was spotless and didn’t smell of anything other than the faintest whiff of pine.
He navigated his cab through downtown quickly but without causing me to lurch in my seat and before long we were headed up Grand Boulevard.
When I checked his speed, I noticed we were exactly one mile per hour under the speed limit.

I nodded my approval and looked back out the window.
I thought about the interviews ahead. A small tingle of excitement fluttered in my chest.

Outside
, the real estate was getting more expensive the closer we got to Fillmore.

13

Principal Roger Jenkins was not impressed with me.

I could read it in his eyes.
They narrowed
when he scowled
at me, carrying the look of the unjustly inconvenienced along with a wisp of suspicion.
His handshake was brief, but firm.
He allowed me into his office and shut the door behind us before settling behind his desk and asking for my credentials.

I sat down in the chair in front of his desk.
“I could show you my driver’s license so that you know I am who I say I am.”

Principal Jenkins shook his head.
“I meant a badge or whatever private investigator’s carry.”

“I’m not a private investigator.”

Principal Jenkins
’s scowl deepened
.
“I was led to believe that you were.”

I shook my head.

When I didn’t offer an explanation, Jenkins
leaned back, his expression unchanged.
“Mr. Sinderling said that he would be sending a private investigator.”

“Maybe you misunderstood,” I suggested mildly.

The scowl deepened further.
I wondered if the students ever called him Sphincter-Face.
“I don’t think so,” he said with a hint of a sneer.

I shrugged.
“Mr. Sinderling is worried about his daughter.
Maybe he misspoke.
It doesn’t matter.
Either way, he gave you my name, right?”

Jenkins gave a short, abrupt nod.

“Then there’s no problem.”

He didn’t nod, but instead stared at me.
I imagined it was the same fierce gaze he leveled at
Freshmen
boys caught scrawling dirty words on bathroom stalls.
I was sure that he was used to people wilt
ing
under that stare, whether it were a student, staff member or even a parent.
In his world, it was probably an extremely effective tactic, one that rarely, if ever, failed him.

But I wasn’t from his world.

Our little stare contest lasted another thirty seconds.
I reflected impassivity back to him.
I didn’t want to up the stakes, because it was starting to look like he was going to deny me access to conducting interviews at the school.
I wasn’t sure if he had the authority or not, but it didn’t matter.
He could deny me today and what was I going to do?
Call the police?
Sue him?

“The problem, Mr. Kopriva,” he said in a low voice, “is that I am not comfortable letting an imposter private detective
have
free reign at my school.
All for a runaway child.”

“Principal Jenkins,” I responded formally, in a low tone that matched his, “I am not an imposter.
I have not represented myself as a private investigator.
I am a private party, designated by Mr. Sinderling to investigate
the circumstances surrounding
his missing daughter.
And he has specifically authorized me to speak to his daughter’s teachers on his behalf.”

“It’s not a matter of—” he began.

“Let’s just end this little pissing contest right here,” I interrupted.

Jenkins eyes widened briefly, then narrowed again.
“All right.
How?”

“It’s simple,” I said.
“You don’t want me here.
I understand that.
But I’m not going to bother anyone except Kris’s teachers and only for a few minutes.
You can come along or send someone along if you want to.”

“Or,” he said, “I can ask you to leave before I call security.”

I nodded.
“Yes, you can.
In fact, go ahead and do it right now.”
I motioned toward his telephone.
“Pick up the phone and call them.”

“Actually,” Jenkins said, removing a digital phone from his belt and holding it up, “we use these.”

“Well, welcome to the new
Millennium
,” I said.

“You’re very rude, Mr. Kopriva,” Jenkins said dryly.

“You’re very arrogant,” I shot back and leaned forward in my chair.
“You go ahead and call security.
Have me escorted off the property.
Enjoy your power trip.
Then get back to checking hall passes.”

Jenkins’s scowl had never really left his f
ace, but it tightened again.
I almost laughed at my earlier thought about his pinched face.

“Think about this, though,” I said.
“You said Kris was just a runaway.
You may be right.
I’m sure in your line of work, you hear about runaways all the time, so it’s probably no big thing.
But to Matt Sinderling, it is a big deal.
It’s a very big deal.
”

“I’m sure it is,” he said dryly.

“
I’ll tell you something else, Principal Jenkins.
I’ve seen a ton of runaways, too.
I used to be a cop until I got hurt.
I’ll bet you’ve seen a happy ending in most cases, with little Billy or little Susie returning home after a day or two, or moving in with Grandma or some friends.”

His scowl slackened and I could see I was right.
I pressed on.

“I saw some of the same things happen, but I also saw a lot of runaways that didn’t have happy endings.
Those stories ended in drugs, prostitution, even death.
Stuff you probably read about in the newspaper but have never had to deal with.”

Jenkins shrugged slightly.
“I’m certain that those horror stories are extremely rare.”

“No,” I said.
“Not rare at all.
Just
dirty
little stories that no one ever hears about because they don’t want to listen.
And because it never happens to someone we know.
But what if it happened to someone like Kris Sinderling?
A beautiful, young, middle-class white girl?
Do you think that story would play in the media, Principal Jenkins?”

He considered my words, then shrugged.
“It might.
The public has an insatiable appetite for tragedy.
Particularly of the salacious kind.”

“Yes, they do,” I said.
“And the headlines would be all about what happened to this beautiful young girl.
But after that, secondary stories would spring up.
Like how somebody tried to investigate early on. Someone tried to find her, but when he went to her school, the principal turned him aside and wouldn’t allow him to ask a few teachers a question or two.”
I fanned my hands in front of me, simulating a headline.
“Principal Says Slain Girl ‘Only A Runaway.’”

Jenkins’s brow furrowed.

I dropped my hands to my lap.
“Your choice,” I told him.

He fixed me with the same stare he had used earlier.
I reflected nothing back.
After a few moments, he raised the small telephone to his mouth.
There was a sharp transmission beep.

“Security,” he said.